August 2 & 3

August 2 - Will recieved another blood transfusion last night, from the same donor as the last two. He has one remaining packet from that donor. He was getting anemic and had low red cell count, which was also making him bloated since red blood cells serve a purpose to keep moisture within cells and remove excess, instead he had excess fluid just hanging around in gaps. So they gave him a diuretic medication to remove some of the excess fluid retention. Apparently they expect weight gain of about 30 grams per day for preemies, he's been gaining 70-100! So they think a lot of that is the fluid and not authentic weight gain. We don't expect him to lose weight with a couple doses of the diuretic, just stop gaining excess water weight so fast. He was a bit red from the high count after the transfusion. He was still having some minor spells of apnea and irregular heartbeat, but nothing major. He got another IV placed, before he was down to just the PICC line but he couldn't recieve the transfusion though that. The new IV is in his scalp, so it looks horrible but it seems to annoy him less.

His feedings were being increased again and he was doing well overall. Weight up to 3 lb 14 oz! IV nutrition was discontinued, though he's still recieving IV fluids. He's getting enough nutrition from the milk not to need the IV stuff anymore, which is excellent news! I went down to visit, I was able to drive myself. I got to hold him again, and he was very aware for 10-20 minutes, looking around, staring at me and trying to lick me. His control over his eyes is improving, they're randomly rolling around much less though he can only control them both at the same time for brief moments now before one goes wandering off. He's showing much more interest in his mouth, he was sucking with his mouth closed and putting his fingers in there (though not sucking on them) right before feeding time, a good sign his ability to feed is improving/developing.

August 3 - I called to check on Will this morning, and got great news! He's up to 4 lbs even!! His feedings have been increased to about 11 CC increasing by .3 per feed with almost no residual, and his IV fluids are being weaned down. Hopefully soon he'll be completely off the IV. He's on 30% supplemental oxygen this morning, which isn't the best but isn't bad either. He's going to get an eye exam to check for retinal problems which apparently are common among preemies. Other than that, doing excellent, less spells of apnea, less heart rhythm irregularities, less murmur this morning than yesterday (it still comes and goes, and tends to be tied to the apnea). I may not go in today since I have been coughing a bit this morning. Could be leftover junk from anesthesia and the ventilator, still having patches of problems from those, but we'll see. I'm down to 27 lbs under my pre-pregnancy weight this morning, which is great, I had a lot of extra padding to lose. Still a long way to go, but I'm feeling better. From the surgeries too, my energy is starting to come back, though my muscles are definitely atrophied. I'm considering going back to the gym if I can find away to come up with the $$, it would be great to de-stress and get some muscle tone back, after the mandatory 6-week waiting period to heal of course. I slept through my alarm again in the middle of the night and didn't wake up to pump for nearly 8 hours, OUCH!!! I usually get about 3-4oz per session, I got over 9! I got a loud, easy to use timer instead of my difficult to set alarm, but apparently even that wasn't good enough. I'm certain I set it! Guess I need one that can shock me, or dump ice water on me or something!